Notes

On this album, Michael Collins performs Brahms’s and Reinecke’s clarinet sonatas with the pianist Michael McHale. Their collaboration on Chandos has been successful, from their Lyrical Clarinet album – which received five stars from BBC Music (performance and recording) – to their two acclaimed volumes of British Sonatas, a ‘self-recommending Chandos series’ (Musicweb-international.com).

The two clarinet sonatas were written after Brahms had declared that his compositional career was at an end. He dedicated them to the clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld, whom he much admired. Even if the composer described them as ‘two modest sonatas with piano’, these are works of moving and dramatic intensity, with both the first movement of the F minor and the central Scherzo of the E flat Sonata marked Allegro appassionato. Michael Musgrave (a Brahms specialist) indeed associates the F minor key of No. 1, so often used by Brahms, with ‘passionate, rhetorical expression and formal adventure’; lyrical expressivity is most evident in the serene music of the first movement of No. 2. The latter is unconventionally in three movements, each in the tonic key, and this tonal planning unfolds as a single, continuous, and circular design.

Brahms’s works were devotedly promoted by the composer, conductor, pianist, and teacher Carl Reinecke, whose prodigious output has not fared as well as the music of Brahms, though the chamber music has perhaps proved relatively more durable. Both the Sonata Undine, originally written for flute and piano, and Op. 256 refer to works by Schumann, respectively Kreisleriana and the Concertstück, Op. 92 for piano and orchestra, also known as ‘Introduction and Allegro appassionato’.

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Reviews

Recording of the Month

"This is a most interesting and thought-provoking disc by Michael Collins and Michael McHale. It not only brings us Brahms’ two late masterpieces but also two works from an unjustly neglected Romantic composer, Carl Reinecke. On the evidence of these fine recordings his music should be better known These are excellent performances and the two musicians show a real understanding of each other and of their place in the music. The performance is backed up by Chandos’ usual excellent recorded sound and informative booklet essay - a winner all-round."

Stuart Sillitoe - MusicWeb-International.com - May 2015

“…This is a most desirable issue, with a recording that balances the two instruments perfectly.”

Adrian Edwards – Gramophone magazine – March 2015

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About Chandos

Chandos Records is one of the world's premier classical music record companies, best known for its ground breaking search for neglected musical gems. The company has pioneered the idea of the 'series' and proudly includes series of such composers as Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky, Parry, Walton, Grainger, Berkeley and Bridge. Renowned for its superb sound quality, Chandos has won many prestigious awards for its natural sound.